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Archive for the 'Photography' Category

I remember the first time I saw a moment that I knew I had to photograph. I wonder if other photographers are the same.

I was in Maine, spending a weekend with a friend at his lake side cabin. I woke up on a cool late autumn morning and the whole lake was covered in rising mist. The water was much warmer than the cool dry air and up came the moisture.

My only camera was a 3 megapixel ‘Kodak Easy Share’ I had gotten for Christmas a few years before. This was turn of the century, inexpensive, pocket camera technology at its most average. It was a fine snapshot camera, and I was glad to have received it as a gift, but I never expected that misty lake would impact my life to such a degree.

After that trip, I did a bit of research and bought myself a little Canon point and shoot camera. It was 8 mega pixels and had a bit of zoom ability built-in. I fully expected to love that camera and never need to upgrade again. In the end though, I found it very frustrating. Read more...(692 words, 1 image, estimated 2:46 mins reading time)

In recent years I’ve been more and more drawn to being closer to the food I eat. I’ve been slowly building my own garden and starting to plan for my own animals to be raised for me. A few years ago I spent some time helping a friend get their garden setup and on the day captured below I had just finished rototilling a patch of ground. It has never been tilled before and had grassed planted on it for many years. It was rough going and with the elderly rototiller I had at my disposal I was completely exhausted by the whole event.

The image was shot with a Nikon N80 and Nikon 24-50MM zoom lens. I got as close to the tiller as I could while keeping it fully in the frame and had the lens as wide as it could go. I snapped this shot on a roll of Fuji Superia 400, shot and processed at box speed. I like the shot but if I were to shoot it again, I would over expose the film by one stop. The Fuji Superia film, as I’ve learned since then, really responds well to that.

I am constantly trying to evaluate what camera gear I need and what camera gear I don’t. I am in the process of selling off a considerable amount of equipment and cutting back to just the gear I like and use. I don’t consider myself a collector of camera gear so selling on unused equipment is just a matter of course for me. If I find myself leaving certain pieces of gear at home or just not taking it out of my bag when I’m out shooting, it goes. I don’t want to carry gear I don’t use and I don’t want my money tied up in gear collecting dust.

That being said, I try to have enough equipment to handle more than one situation. I am targeting three separate styles of shooting but there is a lot of overlap. Read more...(807 words, estimated 3:14 mins reading time)

One of the benefits to shooting digitally is that you have a record of the settings and equipment combinations embedded into each image you make. Every time you click the shutter on your camera, be it a high end DSLR or a cheap point and shoot, the image file has what’s called EXIF data baked into it. You can look at the image and then reference the settings you used to make it, which is very helpful in learning the interactions between shutter speed, aperture and ISO. When I was learning to use my DSLR I used this information all the time and as I’ve moved over to film I have used my experience in digital shooting to help me set the camera for the image I want to make. Going forward though, I’ve begun to miss that information and as I keep trying new film types, having access to that information would be very handy. Read more...(991 words, estimated 3:58 mins reading time)

I’ve never been excited about photography in a studio setting. A lot of people enjoy working in a studio but I’d much rather be shooting landscapes, hiking through the woods or wandering through a local fair. When I started considering a medium format camera it was always in the context of taking it with me to interesting places. Since hiking with the camera was my plan from the start I was careful to seek out a medium format camera known for it’s relative portability.

The Mamiya 645 Pro, the medium format camera I’ve chosen, is on the smaller side of things in the medium format world. Unlike the 35mm camera world, medium format cameras shoot in a variety of standard sizes. A 35mm camera (almost) always shoots a frame that is 24mm x 36mm. Medium format cameras though are built to shoot one of several standard sizes usually measured in centimeters, such as 6cm x 9cm, or 6cm x 6cm. The Mamiya 645 shoots a frame that is 6cm x 4.5cm, hence it’s name (It’s not uncommon for a medium format camera name to also contain it’s frame size). With my camera shooting the smallest standard size on medium format film, the camera can be a lot smaller and lighter than something designed to shoot a much larger frame. Obviously I lose out on the really massive negatives, but the 645 still produces a frame 3x the size of a 35mm camera and it’s more than 7x larger than the sensor on my Nikon D7000. Read more...(1583 words, estimated 6:20 mins reading time)

*** What follows is a post which, as usual, is written more for me then anyone else. It has taken more than 1300 words to help wrap my mind around medium format, the Mamiya 645 Pro, and how it compares to my past knowledge of 35mm cameras. I only hope you are sitting if you choose to read this, as you will be asleep before it’s end ***

I’ve been thinking for some time about picking up a medium format film camera. It’s been nagging at me for a few years and when I was recently helping my parents dig out some old slides from their honeymoon, we ran across a few medium format slides from when my dad was a child. I was immediately blown away by the quality of the frames and it was the final push I needed to really start looking for a camera in earnest.

After digging around on the web comparing various cameras, each with unique pros and cons, I had figured out that I was interested in a camera that could accept a waist level finder as well and be able to swap film backs, mid roll. Read more...(1358 words, estimated 5:26 mins reading time)

To my mind, I see three ‘goals’ in photography: Documentation, Journalism, and Art. You may have other goals in mind but for me I’m usually shooting with one of those goals in mind.

The art goal is easy to define. Any picture that you have taken simply for the sake of taking it. Maybe you’ve spotted an interesting texture, a unique geometric pattern or just a vibrant flower and taken a picture.

Defining journalism photography, especially in contrast to documentation photography, can be a little more difficult to put into words. I see the types both being about gathering information, be it about a local disaster or celebration. The difference, for me, is that when I’m documenting something I’m doing it for my benefit and when I’m in journalism mode, I’m doing it for others. Allow me to elaborate.

When I’m shooting in the journalistic sense, I’m trying to capture an accurate representation of what is happening. I’m trying to put my opinion of a situation aside and gather all available information around me through the eye of my camera. When I’m shooting to document something I’m simply gathering information that I care about. Read more...(542 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

As a film shooter I’ve been struggling a lot lately with getting my images converted to digital. I have tried two scanners, the Epson Perfection V500 and the Plustek 7500i and while both get reasonably good reviews online, I was not having any luck getting quality scans from them. I’m sure it’s operator error but even at low resolutions the scans were not even half as sharp as the source film and once scanned it took me a long time to process each image to have good color and contrast (let alone getting the scanner to help clean up dust and scratches). I was getting pretty discouraged and wondering if I should really still be shooting film at all. I was looking around online and people with the same scanners as I have were getting great results that looked nothing like mine. They were all talking about curves used and a series of tweaks performed in Photoshop or other software and frankly, I’m not that kind of photographer. I want to be shooting, not processing. Lots of people love the digital end of photography but I am not one of them. I want scanning to be easy. I want to be able to press a few buttons and have scans that look.. you know.. like the film I shot. Read more...(1762 words, 5 images, estimated 7:03 mins reading time)

If you look around the internet you will find what almost appears to be a bit of a film renaissance. People all over the internet are adding film back into their photography. It seems people are not abandoning digital for film, they are simply adding film to how they work. While the end result between digital and film are the same, pictures, they both have various strengths and weaknesses that can and should be exploited.

Digital is really great at a lot of things and I shoot 75% of my work on my Nikon D300. You can make thousands of tweaks to the camera, change the ISO speed at any time and can see what your shots look like right now. All of these things are really beneficial and if you are a professional out shooting a wedding or a fashion shoot these features make all the difference in the world. Read more...(874 words, estimated 3:30 mins reading time)

When I first bought my Nikon FE I canvased a few people I know that have or do shoot film to find out what they recommend for a general use film. Something that I could use for whatever might come my way. Everyone said to look for a 400 speed film and a number of them pointed me squarely at this Fuji film. It’s a standard print film that can be handled and processed most anywhere. I bought a few 36 exposure rolls and went to town, so to speak.

I am pretty impressed with this film. It does have a healthy amount of grain to it, though it’s not distracting, and it does very well with shadow detail. Color rendition is very strong with perhaps an affinity for greens; I understand Fuji is known for that. Read more...(801 words, 4 images, estimated 3:12 mins reading time)